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From the North Star to GPS

Technical details:
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  • Genre: Group exhibition

  • Venue: Real Chancillería de Valladolid

  • Year: 2024–2025

Description:
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"De la estrella polar al GPS" stems from an 18th-century topographic map used to demarcate the Doña Ana Valley in Zamora. Using this historical document as a starting point, Rosa Brugat traces a journey across the Iberian Peninsula—from Girona to the site of the dispute—that unfolds as both a physical and symbolic crossing. The landscape takes center stage: valleys, mosses, and flowers washing over the terrain, within a nature that ultimately overtakes human footprints. Guided by Diablillo, a bull serving as her alter ego, the artist reflects on time, memory, and humanity's relationship with its environment—a visual meditation on what binds us to the earth.

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​Press:
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Rosa Brugat - Memoria y paisaje - Bonart, 2024

Rosa Brugat "De la Estrella Polar al GPS",  Ministry of Culture, archive record

… de pas

Year: 2014

Technical details:
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  • Genre: Group exhibition

  • Venue: Real Chancillería de Valladolid

  • Year: 2024–2025

In "De la estrella polar al GPS" (From the North Star to GPS), Rosa Brugat crafts an artistic proposition that connects history, technology, and landscape, drawing inspiration from an 18th-century topographic map used to demarcate the Doña Ana Valley in Fuentesaúco (Zamora). This historical map, drawn up to settle land disputes between families, serves as the starting point for a journey across the Iberian Peninsula from Girona, on the French border, to the site of the litigation. In this horizontal crossing, Brugat does not merely revisit historical routes; she reinterprets them through her work, revealing an ongoing dialogue between past and present. Nature emerges as the true protagonist of this experience. Landscapes, with their unpredictable force, overpower human intervention, offering a contrast between the eternal and the ephemeral. Brugat travels these paths as an active observer, taking in the energy of the valleys and the natural elements encountered along the way, from mosses to flowers that stain the surroundings in shades of lilac and yellow. In her video art, the imagery captures not only the beauty of these settings, but also the stories pulsing just beneath the surface. Far from being a mere tool, technology functions as a pivotal narrative element within the piece. Through a symbolic alter ego embodied by a bull she calls Diablillo, the artist introduces an ancestral link between the human and the natural. This bull, which guides and gives voice to the video, represents both the deep roots tying us to the past and the challenges faced in the present. From the ongoing tension between the natural and the artificial to the consequences of climate change, Brugat’s narrative invites reflection on humanity’s relationship with its environment. At the video's most introspective turn, the artist comes upon a cabin deep in the woods. Charged with symbolism, this space becomes a point of connection with ancestors and the secrets guarded by nature. Through images of wading into a river and arranging logs into modest walls, Brugat evokes a sense of purity and a return to childhood. The work culminates in a visual homage to the equilibrium between humanity and the environment, underscoring how landscape reconnects us to deep-seated memories and emotions. "De la estrella polar al GPS" is, at its core, a meditation on time and memory that employs art to raise fundamental questions about how we inhabit the world. Brugat reminds us that in every step, every landscape, and every moment lies the chance to uncover essential truths—readily within reach, yet too often left unexplored.

Rosa Brugat · Artist / Performer. © 2026 

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